DAY 6 — Rome
Rome is a dirty city, a lot like New York, but it doesn’t smell and doesn’t seem that bad. Many people smoke and throw their butts in the street, but nobody seems to care.
Inna’s Theory: When you combine dirty and modern it’s ugly; but when you combine dirty and ancient it’s okay.
While Inna rested in the morning on our last day in lovely Roma, I walked around the north side of the ancient city and through the sprawling Borghese Park. I was curious about the stately trees ornamental gardens and ponds, fountains, and eye-catching sculptures we had seen only briefing when we had visited the Borghese Museum a few days before in the rain and I wanted to have a closer look.
The weather was sunny and the temps were climbing toward 70. It was by far the best day of weather we had in Rome.
I met Inna at noon and she decided to tour Palazzo Barberini, the beautiful museum right next to our hotel. Barberini was the first Mafiosa Pope who rigged his own election. I had seen enough Mother Mary and baby Jesus paintings to last a lifetime, so I walked over to the Quadrinelle (Imperial Palace) and then around the crumbling ruins of Emperor Trajan’s shops.
I hooked back up with Inna at 2, and then we took the 3.5 hour CityWonders bus tour of the catacombs, the St Clemente Church, and the Capuchin Crypt.
Catacombs are tunnel cemeteries that began being dug on the southern outskirts of Rome in the Third Century BC.
Christianity started as a small cult. And in the beginning, the Romans made a sport of killing them in interesting ways. This, in turn, created lots of martyrs, or “witnesses”. And martyrs begat martyrs. Just look at what’s happening today in Syria and Iraq, with people martyring themselves, albeit these days they tend to use high explosives. So, the Romans ramped-up the persecution and there were a lot of inspired dead Christian bodies to deal with.
Christians buried the entire body because they would need the whole thing in the afterlife. But Roman Law wisely forbade the burial of bodies inside Rome for fear of spreading disease in such a densely populated area. The Romans burned their dead and didn’t understand this Christian concept of burying bodies underground. But they didn’t really care what the Christmas did with the bodies as long as they disposed of them in a sanitary way somewhere away from the city.
And with the wholesale slaughter of Christians, the catacombs soon became a thriving business. The grave diggers were clever and made many layers of graves, sort of like a subterranean grave hotel, as they bored through the soft volcanic tufa rock south of Rome. Most of the graves resemble narrow drawers carved into the stone. And just like today, if the deceased was wealthy or famous, they had a bigger and more elaborate niche in the wall. Over the course of several hundred years the grave diggers carved vast networks of interconnected tunnels and caves.
The Catacombs held the graves of many infamous Christian martyrs, so before long, they became a popular place visited by pilgrims, and this went on until the 9th Century when they stopped entombing martyrs there because of the invading Barbarians from the north who looted the graves and killed anyone who came around. And after years of neglect the Catacombs fell into ruin.
Amateur archaeologists and scholars eventually began “rediscovering” the catacombs and people and vandals started flocking there from all over Europe. This second round of systematic looting continued until the 19th Century.
Our tour bus took us down the Appian Way, the main road south out of town that was built in 312 BC. It was the first paved road on earth and was 360 miles long, extending all the way to the Mediterranean seaports. Rome became the world’s largest cosmopolitan city in large part because of the Appian Way which efficiently brought goods and people to the capital.
Along the Appian Way there were large bath complexes. The ancient Romans loved their baths. I find it odd that cleanliness is not given the same priority these days. Many of the Romans we encountered smelled like goats. Interestingly, the concept of spas began with the Romans and the word “spa” means “health through water”.
We stopped for a visit at the Catacombe S. Domitilla. Our guide led us through the tufa caves where thousands of Christians were buried in ten miles of tunnels. Virtually every burial vault was empty from centuries of looting. The whole place had a deeply unsettling vibe. Inna was especially creeped out by the place and left the tour after only a few minutes and returned to the surface where there were some lovely gardens.
Our next stop was the very unassuming Church of San Clemente. Clemente was Bishop of Rome, which was the precursor of the Pope. St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and he lost his head in the process. Clemente carried on the grand tradition and was martyred by having a large anchor tied around his neck and drowned in the Black Sea. Supposedly you can see his bones once each year in the mud flats during an especially low tide.
But in the 4th Century everything suddenly changed when the emperor stopped being considered a divinity. And at that point Medieval times began and Christianity took over. The Pope became the divine one on earth and the Catholics became the new killers on the block.
The San Clemente church has three distinct layers, or time periods, that mirror Rome’s three seasons. (Pagan, Catholic, post 1861)
At the top there’s the current church that dates from the 12th Century.
Underneath is an even bigger church from the 4th Century. And in this church they showed us a mosaic on the wall with the first Christian vulgarity. It tells the story of the arrest of Bishop Clemente after he blinded a powerful businessmen whose wife had converted to Christianity. Clemente is rolled up in a carpet and the businessman is yelling at his guards, “Pull him, you sons of bitches!”
The 4th Century was a time of great transition when all sorts of religions were being practiced alongside one another. And the alter of this second layer church indicates that numerous gods were competing for supremacy.
For instance, there is an altar to the Greek God Mithres who many scholars believe was the genesis of the Jesus story because there are so many similarities between the two. Mithres was sent by Apollo to save us poor humans from our sins and he was ceremonially murdered only to rise from the dead after three days. There is even a communion component where the worshipers of Mithres drank wine that represented his blood and to devoutly follow Mithres meant eternal life (a relatively unknown concept at the time).
One day the priest of the first level church heard the sound of water running somewhere underground. He went looking for the source and discovered a pagan temple from the 2nd Century. Apparently, only men were allowed in this temple where they sacrificed and then ate animals (similar to the Eucharist). Subsequent analysis determined that this pagan place of worship had been in operation from the 1st Century BC to the 4th Century AD. So these different religions all existed at the same time in the same place for several hundred years.
San Clemente Church is a religious time capsule that showcases the entire story of how religion evolved in Rome for thousands of years. And it begs the question: What’s Next?
Our final stop on the tour was the Capuchin Crypt. The Capuchins are an obscure Franciscan order whose symbol is crossed arms — one arm is that of Jesus and the other a Capuchin.
I have no pictures of this stunningly over-the-top stop because they strictly forbid the taking of photos and they monitor you at all times on video. So, you are going to have to let my words paint the pictures. I suggest you check out google images if you want to see some truly wild shit.
These Franciscan hooded monks were only allowed three possessions in the world: a long, heavy brown hooded robe with a pointed hood (Capuchin); leather sandals (many went barefoot); and a rope belt with three knots symbolizing poverty, chastity, and obedience. They were not even allowed to touch money and they begged for charity. Essentially, they were extreme panhandlers for Jesus.
As an interesting side note, the capuchin monkey and cappucchino coffee both take their names because their brown color resembles the shade of the monks’ robes.
In 1631, Pope Urban VIII, the Mafia Pope, ordered his brother Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who was a Capuchin, to dig up the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars and re-inter them under the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome. The Pope then ordered that the bones be arranged along the walls of the crypt. Each night the friars came to pray and reflect before bed. And thus the madness began.
The crypt now contains the remains of 4,000 friars buried between 1500–1870, and is divided into five chapels illuminated only by small lamps. It reminded me of something out of “Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest” in it’s macabre, yet clever, fascination with the dead. There are complete skeletons, some still wearing their Franciscan robes, and row-after-row of skulls, leg bones, pelvic bones, and arms bones, all laid out in eerie patterns, often depicting various religious themes.
Inna found it even more disturbing than the catacombs, while I found it almost comical; as did my hero, Mark Twain, who visited the crypt in 1867, and wrote about it with wry humor in “The Innocents Abroad”.
No one knows for certain why or who had the seriously deranged idea to stack the bones and pose the monks in various poses, or to use the bones to create clocks without hands, flowery designs, lamp holders, weird designs inside bone frames, mysterious symbols on the walls and ceilings, all made from the bones of the dead Capuchin monks, but it all started fairly recently, in the 1800s, when they converted some of the warehouses in the basement into the “walk of remembered death”.
The lesson of the crypt is pretty clear: There is always an end. And death is never far away. The only thing separating us from the skeleton monks is time — a mere blink of the eye.
The Capuchin Crypt was easily the strangest thing I have ever seen. And it was undeniably creepy. But for me it was a fraternity prank kind of creepy. But in the dark it would freak your ass out, big time.
We ate our 6th wedding anniversary dinner at La Scuderia near the Trevi Fountain and chatted it up with a friendly young couple from Southampton, England who voted for Brexit. The Brits, like the Americans, appear hellbent of self destruction.
After dinner we walked over to the Forum and bought tickets for the out-of-this-world Viaggi Nell’Antica Roma laser light show on the Forum walls originally erected by Emperor Augustus in 27 BC.
We had an hour to kill before the light show, so we had drinks — White Russian and Talisker scotch — on the gorgeous rooftop bar of the Hotel Forum Roma, overlooking ancient Rome. It was a very romantic way to spend our anniversary.
We caught the hour long light show on the Forum walls and then walked home on our last night in Rome. WOW! http://www.viaggioneifori.it
Walked 13.1 miles
Insider Tip — You might be like Inna and I, and go to bed by ten each night. But in Italy you will find yourself staying up later and later each night. It’s almost impossible to follow your normal sleeping habits. After a few days in country you will look at your watch one night and it will be midnight, and you won’t be tired. And you will still be good to go the next day as long as you get about seven hours sleep.
Insider Tip — If you sit down in an outdoor cafe it will be five times more expensive than ordering at the bar. Of course, you won’t have the nice view. Essentially you are paying through the nose to people watch.
Insider Tip — Eat at hotel rooftop restaurants for the best views in town by far. And they are all open to the general public.
